This week's topical cryptic clue from @theobserveruk.bsky.social's weekly puzzles email: Mass rioting, tension, the beginning of anarchy here in America? (9). Subscribe here: newsroom.observer.co.uk/cr/AQjcjBUQ-...

Bears vs. Trail cameras

Meteor - From Bill (ridingrobots.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2jssKmA

Cartoon for @airmail.news 🐟

SNOWFALL (Anagrammed Lines) Winter wails lavish frost: Snowfall arrives, with its faint silver. Slow wraiths flow in salt rivers. What is final swirls over its thaw.

I set today's cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Free this bird trapped by small bricks (3,2,2) Drunk in bulk, ale is not nice (9)

A female Downy Woodpecker showcasing couture fashion by wearing a snowflake, a one-of-a-kind piece.

Incoming Red-tailed Hawk (she flew right over my head.)

Some great pastiches apart from the famous Bee Gees single, mostly down to Philip Pope. Always liked the Eagles one ("And there's an a***ole in the White House and we long for those bygone days" 🤔). www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS9M...

Bears vs. Trail cameras

Worth downloading the full size photo from that Flickr link for the extra detail. The same comet compared to LA:

Canada lynx

When you don't shut cupboard doors quickly enough.

I set today's Toughie crossword in the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Perform Beatles song? In favour of Help! (2,9,3) Lennon's opener inspired by wild Get Back (7) Appear as Santa's helper? Not fit, grow tired (4,7,3)

[Repost with your home river] The Teifi, Newcastle Emlyn. (A bad crossword river!)

MERGING (Anagrammed Lines) More winter seedlings — more needless writing; entire worlds seeming to merge in wilderness....

Bears vs. Trail cameras

I set today's prize cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Shame about Flash, Queen single's cover (7) Full of beans and windy, get niece to bring in last of Alka-Seltzer (9)

Very happy to be back in the Independent with a crossword today. I wrote it in 2023, when the world champion at 24ac wasn’t so famous and the brothers in 21dn weren't talking! Devious new clue following edit (9) Harry owes cash for present (8) Free at puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/crypti...

FOR IDRIS ELBA (Palindrome) Able sir, did nobody fit recognise it ties in? Go, certify — do Bond, Idris Elba!

I set today’s Sunday Telegraph prize Toughie www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ "Tangled up in Blue" ultimately discarded by music magazine (8) Character from "Lewis" close to suspect on slope (6)

Bears vs. Trail cameras

Grateful for the qualifying clause after fearing the david was in danger.

Wayne's World, 116 years ago.

Met Office @Mum

Julie Andrews walks into a vegan cafe and orders the Do Re Mi Fa Soy Latte

Go round the outside.

Pandiculate: go get a lucid nap. #palindrome

Bears vs. Trail cameras

I set today's cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Tout from estate at this event? (3,4,4) Tense question on original TV game show (10) Who's grasping money in film by Stone? (9)

Anyone know whose Times cryptic gets marmelised here? 🙂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBrD...

The male Northern Cardinal is a brilliant pop of color on a snowy morning.

Flotsam washed up on the beach at Newport, Pembrokeshire, on Sunday afternoon after a recent storm: goose barnacles attached to a very old bottle. An expensive delicacy in Spanish and Portuguese restaurants. Our hound thinks I'm about to hoy it for her to fetch.

I set the prize Toughie crossword in today’s Sunday Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Medicine from jar next to blunt needle (5,5,5) A dodgy tip with score at 16:9? (6,5) Brilliant book on Dexter (6)

VOYNICH (Anagrammed Lines) I encrypt much, to vanish into such ivy parchment — in the script many vouch vaunts no mythic cipher: The Voynich Manuscript.

ISSUE 2 PRE-SALES NOW OPEN! £5 plus postage Coming out in JANUARY 2026 unchcrosswords.com

Festive back garden view at dawn this morning in West Wales. (Oak, hawthorn, laurel and buddleia all getting out of hand, shout out to the Green Man.)

I set today's Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ At last Cassandra Trotter is up (5) This out of order, I can't shop? (9) Echo accompanying Rotten and Vicious? Stop playing because of it (7)

Albion Basin, Utah, midnight - From Bill (ridingrobots.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/W2UKFi

Guinness-sponsored rapper dropping truth bombs, MC Whirter. #IsThisAnything

Wow, he looks just like him!

ATLANTIS WISHED (Anagram-Sonnet) Within sad slate, wind halts a site. The island waits, sans tidal white. Awe hits its land— At dawn, this isle tilts wise a hand. It stands awhile. In wash, last tide, the sand it wails. Wan salt, it hides its wit and shale. Its death in laws, it lies and thaws.

Congratulations to Iceland on becoming a woman.

I set today’s Daily Telegraph Toughie crossword www.telegraph.co.uk/puzzles/ Put off hack? (7) Food prepared it’s wiser to keep hot? (5,4)

I wrote a blog post for @mycrossword.co.uk about how setters can identify and calibrate how difficult (or otherwise) their own puzzles are: www.mycrossword.co.uk/blog/the-dif... If you’re a setter, an aspiring setter or just curious as to how these things work - give it 4 minutes of your time! 😊